


a red seed

by deathwailart



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Bonding, F/M, Gen, Hunters & Hunting, Implied Relationships, Injury Recovery, Teaching, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:20:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24575956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: After Sodden, Ciri needs training, Geralt needs help, and Yennefer finds destiny can sometimes be kind in the aftermath.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13
Collections: Fandom 5K 2020





	a red seed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lastwingedthing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastwingedthing/gifts).



> S2 is going to probably go very differently from this so…
> 
> This has a few elements from the games, mostly Wild Hunt because I've been playing it more recently to while away the weekends but knowledge from it isn't needed for the story (I just enjoy the monster design and contracts from it, a little bit of flavour because I love how creepy some of the background areas are). A few liberties might have been taken with timelines despite having to write all of that down to try to keep track and geography; I'm not going to pretend I'm perfect with that when it comes to this franchise. Food and drink from The Witcher 3, potions etc too even if I've played about with how they work (chugging bear pheromones sounds gross and dumb compared to slapping that on your person.)

Sodden's ash scorches Yennefer's nose, that first ragged inhale heavy with her own dried blood in her mouth, grass burnt past the point of ash to fine soot that chokes her as the ground about her radiates heat, charred as the Nilfgaardians now indistinguishable from their armour, twisted in their death throes; miles off, unknown to Yennefer until much later a similar ring of grass lies blown back, a horse with innards torn out, bodies impaled on the remains of barren trees as evidence of chaos unleashed elsewhere. Beneath black leather as dark as her hair, black as the evidence of Tissaia's last instruction, black as the wave that stood against peasants and those who came to their aid is an ugly red wound healing to join the collection of scars on Geralt of Rivia as he limps his way onward with a girl astride his horse, both of them calling out her name.   
  
Her ears are ringing. Her eyes gaze sightlessly about her. The earth beneath Yennefer of Vengerberg struggles with itself to remember what it is and what happened here as Geralt finds her.  
  
Or rather, a girl does, a girl with a voice high and clear as a songbird bursting free with a call of two names that pierces through the fog that's fallen over Yennefer (something beyond exhaustion, beyond confusion, another space she's come close to so few times but hasn't stepped over the boundaries of with both feet), surprised and maybe delighted. Sitting up is all the effort Yennefer can muster; she hasn't anything left for guessing the tone of a stranger but destiny is sweeter this time, as if apologising for the litany of complaints Yennefer's parched raw throat – a lifetime ago in Aretuza rises to the surface, when blood (her blood) drew out flame and she _howled_ \- can't give voice to. Yennefer closes her eyes and allows the exhaustion to wash over her, a hand digging into the soil, below the cracked crust of earth she's left behind, below where pebbles have melted into new shapes and the heat remains to where the soil is damp, cool; miraculously her fingers haven't burnt off. The flesh is tender, new in a way it shouldn't be but Fringilla once shrivelled a hand to lift a rock and sometimes a flower is just a flower but here Yennefer is and Geralt is coming. Yennefer has things to say to Tissaia after all about unleashing chaos and the bottle exploding if this is what results, to fall back again and lie in the dirt, unburnt somehow but with limbs curiously adrift, loosened and slack, a child's discarded doll sorely in need of mending after rough handling.  
  
A shadow blots out the red behind her eyes – she doesn't remember closing them again but it's pleasant, soothing as something fetched to lessen a hangover – and Yennefer looks up to a wood carving brought to life, the bear and the maiden, haggard as she feels.  
  
"Yennefer?" A girl asks, eyes huge from where she's tucked by Geralt's side, her white-blonde hair a tangle, holding the reins to a horse that doesn't bat an eye at the bodies about them.  
  
Geralt kneels as if it pains him and her nose must be damaged if she can't smell him despite the state he's in, the hair clinging to his face, the tears in the shirt, the way he goes down as if it pains him to move even that much. Genuinely pains him, not out of memory of their last parting, the words said by and to—"Yen," he says, low and with a hand outstretched.  
  
Her mouth moves to smile, her hand up and out from the dirt as the dry earth cracks and flies up behind the girl's feet as she hurries over to them now, a waterskin pressed to Yennefer's lip.  
  
"We've been looking for you," Geralt says with an arm beneath Yennefer's shoulder; he looks at her the way he has since the first time, the last time, every time between. "Yennefer, what the hell happened here?"  
  
Yennefer takes his hand, drinks, and closes her eyes.  
  


* * *

  
  
"You took your time waking."  
  
Triss is sat on the end of Yennefer's bed. Only it's not Yennefer's bed, that bed belongs to another girl now, a girl who might be strongly reconsidering her place here, her place in the world itself after all this but Triss is here and smiling.   
  
Yennefer takes her hands and watches Triss try to hide her wince; the bandages peek out the neckline of her gown where she's bound from somewhere below her navel to about the sternum to give the healing flesh a chance though from what Yennefer can recall of Triss' face twisted in agony even as her ears rang, Fringilla's voice (no, she won't think of Fringilla, not now, not here when so many of them knew a different Fringilla) the results won't be pretty.  
  
She smiles and sits up herself, woozy from whatever they gave her and drinks – well it _would_ be apple juice, he's alarmingly sentimental isn't he? "Did I come here on a horse or did I dream that?" Yennefer asks instead of what she wants to ask because she can't, she can't bring herself to ask that, not when there are other questions that crowd her throat.   
  
Simple and yet not.  
  
Triss smirks, leaning back until the bandages remind her that they exist and she sits up with a frown pinching the edges. "Quite the scene, you astride a horse with a Witcher and a girl; they're having breakfast, shall I—"  
  
"No need." Geralt's in the doorway, a plate in his hand like the worst maid Yennefer could imagine and having been in court she's seen more than her fair share though he'll be honest with his opinions about and to her rather than behind her back so there's that. "I, _we_ ," and he steps aside, the girl from before peering owlishly into the room, "thought you might be hungry."  
  
"I'm positively famished Geralt though you're—"  
  
Triss swats at her. "I'll see that Tissaia's following her own instructions, shall I? And myself. I'll see you before I go." And she's up and off, Geralt extending an arm to catch Triss as she steadies herself with a breath in through the nose, the girl staring. Any longer and Yennefer wonders if her eyes will fall out. "Take care of her. And get off your leg. Whoever healed that didn't intend for you to be prowling Aretuza and battlefields so soon after one imagines though I'm well aware you're a terrible patient."  
  
Triss closes the door, Geralt slowly turning his head to watch then looking back at Yennefer who raises an eyebrow, sitting upright in bed. Ludicrous really, she's in a far better state than Triss physically, or Sabrina who she hasn't even seen, and Tissaia who took dimeritium to the face yet still insists that she can carry on as normal or as normal as things are right now. Yennefer supposes she can hardly blame her there, she'd maybe be little better herself but unlike the rest she's unmarked from what happened. Exhausted in a way she can't remember, a ravenous hunger belonging to rabid beasts that lives in the core of her bones, the odd ringing in her ears though that's afflicting several of them so clearly not her chaos unleashed alone yet _she_ is the one told to stay in her bed since a Witcher brought her here on a horse with a girl.  
  
"You'll catch me up on the things I've missed, I trust?" Yennefer takes the tray from Geralt – standard Aretuza fare for now because they're in the aftermath of Sodden so no one will complain if the breakfast menu isn't what those who serve in courts are accustomed to now they've returned – and tucks in as he pulls up a chair, the girl still hovering. "I have vague memories of course but the girl…"  
  
"Yennefer," he takes a sharp breath through the nose and she expects him to frown but no, Geralt's smiling looking at the girl as he beckons her over. "This is Cirilla."  
  
It's not often that Yennefer of Vengerberg is caught off her guard but that's destiny when Geralt of Rivia has bound it to you. And he's still talking as the girl tries to smile though it's faster than a passing shadow, slipping off her face as she looks from Yennefer to Geralt and back.  
  
"I need your help."  
  


* * *

  
  
Yennefer spends the winter in Aretuza with those who survived Sodden, planning and planning, a goodbye to Geralt and Cirilla who ride off to the mountains; there's safety there that can't be denied, possibly answers too and well, for once Yennefer hasn't plans to flit about and they've means of keeping in touch. Geralt might bristle at it but he asked for her help and there were—  
  
Incidents are the kindest way to put it. In Aretuza's better days they'd have the whole Brotherhood over but thankfully they're keeping their distance; there's history between Geralt and Stregobor, and Stregobor's probably nursing a wounded ego as it is so Yennefer doesn't question it. She spends more time with Triss, with Sabrina who heals finally, with Tissaia, and they talk around the shape of Fringilla's absence, around all the empty chairs, the rooms other girls sleep in that belonged to them, to the lost, to all the minds Yennefer was one with until they were snuffed out brutally to leave her with a howling silence. Eventually though they depart. They have to because Aretuza isn't built to house them all and they've responsibilities to the kingdoms they're sworn to, Triss hugging Yennefer tight with her new scars hidden behind her dress, promises exchanged about keeping in touch that Yennefer intends to keep.  
  
She doesn't expect it to hurt when she herself leaves, Tissaia holding her arms with a tight smile. They don't embrace, they aren't there but she nods and Yennefer nods, remembers the fire that licked over her flesh—  
  
"Whatever you need, Yennefer," Tissaia tells her. "There will always be a place for you here."  
  
"If you need it," Yennefer says as she takes in Aretuza tall and proud behind Tissaia, the sky overcast as it ever is and always will. "Well you've always known where to find me."  
  
And she goes, doesn't look behind her as she opens the portal and steps through as all the rest did to whatever lies ahead of her with a lesson plan tucked in a pocket because what does she know about teaching and well, it might not hurt to improve on Tissaia's example if she can. Just to prove that yes, yes it can be done after all.   
  
So Geralt in Kaer Morhen where Geralt wouldn't have her and Yennefer wouldn't go – the opportunity for study in general and of Witchers more specifically is fascinating as one Witcher alone does not a study make - but a winter trapped up there with Geralt and his fellows if they're cut of the same cloth hardly appealed. It allowed time to prepare for now and Cirilla on her doorstep as Geralt shoulders his weapons, nodding as he taps the girl forward.  
  
"You aren't coming in?" Yennefer asks because she'll not be rude to him when they both agreed after all that the girl is badly in need of training after what little Cirilla told him on the way but he doesn't look inclined to linger.  
  
"We've ridden through a few villages, saw similar messages posted. Sounds like a doppler." Cirilla stiffens, her nostrils flare. "Might be a week, ten days at most?"  
  
"There's plenty we can cover in that time then, off you go." Yennefer might have said something else, something worse prior to the girl with her huge eyes, how she looks ready to bolt Geralt's direction even at the mention of the creature. "Take care."  
  
Geralt nods, opens his mouth and closes it with a smile. "Listen to Yen, all right Ciri?"  
  
"I will, I promise. Be careful?" She sprints over, slamming into him with a hug that he rolls with, taking a step back as he hugs her tight, murmuring something low enough that Yennefer can't catch it. It's enough that the girl comes back to Yennefer to watch him mount Roach and leave.  
  
"In you come Cirilla, off with your muddy boats and cloak. I took the liberty of making sure you'd be well-provided for here so you needn't worry about what you might on the road or the back of a horse," Yennefer tells her as she ushers her inside, the door securely locked behind them.  
  
"You can call me Ciri." It's hushed, a girl who can't stop herself looking every which way as she follows Yennefer in, into a home that Yennefer's taken the liberty of borrowing from a man with a forgettable name and forgettable profession and a long infatuation who indulges her just to try to coax a smile, a laugh, a flick of her eyes in her direction.   
  
She has needs; she'll not worry herself about how she comes by them.  
  
Ciri follows obediently all the way through to the modest – by the standards of minor nobility at the very least, Yennefer isn't certain how Cintra tastes run and she herself finds much of the décor ugly but it suits for the purpose – parlour where anything Ciri might want awaits her; dried fruits and nuts, dumplings, gingerbread and more, one of Yennefer's preferred teas when she finds herself in the mood steaming in a pot on the table. From the way Ciri's staring, a ravening wolf cub wary of any offering, she wonders at what Geralt's been feeding her or just how bad the tavern fare is, if her memories of the company, of what she was up to at the time have somehow managed to give even that some sort of rosy hue. Then again, Nilfgaard encroaches, armies all over need supplies. Food is going to be harder to come by no matter where you wander.  
  
"Sit, sit." Yennefer does just so, fans her skirts out the most casual way that she can to not put on the airs and graces she never did bother with in all her days at court cleaning up the messes of incompetent men who hadn't the power in the whole of themselves that she has in her pinkie. "My friends call me Yen," she says as she pours tea, spooning honey with a silver spoon she thinks might have been a gift from Triss. It looks like the sort of gift Triss might give her but she's not been here in so long now that she's forgetting.   
  
Ciri hesitates, holding the cup the way a lady does since even roughing it with Geralt isn't about to erase a lifetime of Cintra palace upbringing. She watches Yennefer over the rim carefully but with a little smile, hopeful in the way Yennefer remembers being a lifetime ago. Several lifetimes. Hers and Geralt's combined. "Are we friends?"  
  
"I think," Yennefer takes a sip, "we shall be incredibly good friends Ciri."  
  
Ciri smiles at that, something that Yennefer imagines might be a proper smile though she hasn't known her nearly long enough to tell and anything she saw in Aretuza doesn't count given Yennefer was hardly present half the time and the walls and halls were a wonder. She sips her tea, nibbles carefully at a dumpling before her stomach gives a growl that belongs in the mouths of something Geralt's probably beheaded and dumped on an alderman's floor for a pouch of coin and she shoves the whole thing in her mouth, Yennefer hiding a smile behind her cup. Children – and Ciri's still a child in the end – will be what they are, and sometimes manners go flying out the window when push comes to shove.  
  
"Did Geralt say why you were coming to me?"  
  
"Lessons," Ciri says. Or Yennefer guesses, it's muffled behind her hand as she tries to swallow around the dumpling.  
  
"You've told me some of what you can do, so has Geralt, and as Tissaia told me a long time ago, chaos is the most dangerous thing in the world, and yet you channelled it. When you screamed out in that field when you were attacked. And…other times?" It's guesswork, piecing together what Geralt's said. What he hasn't. It's inexact. It has her gritting her teeth yet she'd not have it any other way.  
  
Ciri's brows pull together. Her knees draw up in her seat. She shoves another whole dumpling in her mouth.  
  
Yennefer takes a breath through her nose and strongly considers tipping something strong into her tea but no, it's not going to help though Melitele preserve her the temptation lingers, she'll have to ask Tissaia _how_ she does this, how she's done this for all the years with girls though this is probably destiny laughing (gently, kindly, they're all of them taking the right steps now if more than a decade late) in Yennefer's face. "Well, there's always a give or a take—"  
  
"Last time," Ciri's voice is thick from the food she's forced down and she reaches for her drink again, brushing away crumbs absently because apparently even this short a time around Geralt is eroding her manners. "A horse died. And so did the people who tried to hurt me. I don't remember everything—" And here her gaze darts away, slides right past Yennefer to the brocaded curtains, the crackling hearth, the well-supplied bookshelves so that's certainly a lie but she's still talking at least.  
  
Yennefer takes a sip, nibbles on dried fruits then takes a dumpling too since Ciri's so keen on them to see if they warrant the attempts to swallow them whole, spiced meat and the sharp bite of onion beneath buttery layers of pastry that she catches in her other hand.  
  
"I woke up so I must have fainted or lost consciousness. That didn't happen before, not the other times."  
  
"There's give and take," Yennefer looks for cut flowers but there aren't any to hand. Maybe for the best, it might be too early for those lessons when they're getting to know one another. "You can't conjure something from nothing. Fri—" The name catches in her throat, almost chokes her and she's there, a lifetime ago, girls gone to feed Aretuza turned to eels to still be of use, Sabrina before she was made to move at the whims of Nilfgaard lying broken, before Fringilla turned against them all—  
  
"Yen?" Ciri's hand is soft, eyes doelike. Unhesitating when she reaches out.  
  
"Another girl lifted a stone without touching it when we began lessons. Her hand shrivelled."  
  
"That's horrible," Ciri replies but she leans close, fascinated, and well she's had a winter of Kaer Morhen to make her bold, a winter of Geralt and his brothers, the one who trained them, as many of their tomes as she might get her hands on with and without them looking to see what's suitable for a girl of her age. "Can…can I ask something?"  
  
"Of course you can, you're here to learn and for us to know each other, you need to ask questions."  
  
"If it's like how you say it is, with balance and give and take, why didn't you burn and why am I still here?"  
  
It's the first time, but not the last, that Yennefer doesn't have a quick and ready answer for Ciri.  
  


* * *

  
  
Geralt's doppler contract passes and he rides back, bathes, rests Roach then departs. Ciri doesn't move stones by shrivelling flowers but she does gain a foundation in chaos at least. She hugs Yennefer tight and her arms don't feel empty when she watches her go but the next time – Oxenfurt, Yennefer's own home with all her own things in their places, the colours she wants about her – when Ciri clatters into them with all the coltish grace a girl of her age possesses, Yennefer's heart lurches, seizes tight. Geralt too is a welcome sight, always ragged about the edges and it's not as if worrying over the safety of a girl (and certainly not this girl) does him any favours but it does him all the good as well.   
  
She suspects when they kiss one another, Ciri gagging somewhere behind them, that's it been a long time for both of them that both mouths have been smiling just because yes, you're here and I'm here, it's wonderful to see you.  
  
Yennefer opens her home to them, has food prepared and baths; three of them about her fireplace on the floor on furs, stretched out for Ciri to regale Yennefer with stories Geralt fills in or corrects about encounters along the way of the places they've visited, the people they've met, the monsters he's hunted or more often than not aided in some way. Ciri's training that continues apace, all of it until she's yawning, staggering off to a soft comfortable bed and Geralt returns to Yennefer who presses him back before her fire and they're quiet, so quiet, and every inch of her is satisfied when she takes him to bed after, the candles out, his swords on the other side of the bed.  
  
"She's fast with a blade," he tells her, half-asleep with his cheek pillowed on his arm, eyes shut.  
  
"Any incidents?"  
  
"One. I thought it was a water hag for a moment then I remembered where we were, no water hags," he smiles, proud almost, the years bleeding away when he's lax with sleep, "and she managed to control it but…"  
  
"Well you're here now. She should have an education in it."  
  
"Pavetta didn't."  
  
"And you've since told me of Pavetta's engagement and how _that_ might have turned out. If things weren't how they were, she should be in Aretuza for—" When no interruption comes, Yennefer squints: he's asleep.  
  
She sighs, not particularly aggrieved. One more thing to hold over his head if she needs to (not that he does, how many times has he been able to sleep safely without worry recently?) and she blows out the final candle, nudging him over to steal the warm spot since it's very much her bed after all, she's entitled to all that she wants of it no matter who else is in it as she surrenders to sleep.  
  
There's a noise outside. It doesn't take much to drag Yennefer from sleep these days, the shock of waking as good as flipping her out of bed, covers and all. Geralt's arm is heavy though not unwelcome – he must've turned in the night - slung low over her waits but it tightens, a flex of his fingers to say he too is awake. She turns, the barest rustle of sheets, Geralt rolling onto his back for one of the swords propped next to the bed as the banked fire across the room flares to life once again. A brief nod, him swinging his legs out then a soft knock, a shadow in the gap between the bottom of the door and the floor.  
  
"Geralt? Yennefer?" Ciri's voice, too awake for the hour and Geralt doesn't put down the sword and Yennefer doesn't let go of her spell but their hackles drop. The fire lowers though, if not for her sake then for Ciri's. She saw Cintra burn and Yennefer amidst the charred men who did it. Best not stoke her fears at this hour.  
  
"You should be asleep," Geralt's saying, the door cracked open, silvery light spilling in from the hall, the girl silhouetted and turned to one of the phantoms he hunts across the lands. "Is…is something the matter?  
  
"Nightmares—I couldn't, I'm sorry—I'll—"  
  
Whatever comes next Yennefer misses in the soft sound of Ciri burrowing her face in Geralt's chest, his sword set down.  
  
"It's late Ciri," Yennefer says as she rubs the sleep from her eyes, voice sharper than she intends.  
  
"I'll go back to—"  
  
"Come on, there's room."  
  
"Room enough for all of Rinde," Geralt mutters but he's guiding Ciri over and she hesitates for a moment before she clambers in, tucking herself against Yennefer's side.  
  
"Do you want to talk about it?" Geralt asks with a familiarity that tells Yennefer he's been here before, in Kaer Morhen, in whatever rooms he can afford, in the open air with only trees and Roach as witness. A man who only ever had his horse as company for decades until so recently.  
  
"In the morning," Ciri says, tucking her tear-stained face into Yennefer's shoulder.  
  
Geralt and Yennefer stay awake while she sleeps, guarding against monsters neither of them can fight but someone might as well be ready should they come again even if it leaves them bleary-eyed come the morn.  
  


* * *

  
  
Prior to it all, Yennefer might never have admitted to the pleasure of rabbit roasted on the spit, 'seasoned' (Geralt's words, Ciri's dubious quirk of the mouth) and almost hot enough to burn the fingers had she not known something hotter. Three of them on stumps or logs, Roach and sometimes her own beast tethered not far off should they be travelling long enough that she not want to go it on foot (a nameless horse, why bother naming a thing she'll sell again soon enough but she's hearing more of Geralt's fellow Witchers, weighing and measuring her options, perhaps she might 'borrow' his tradition for her own) as Ciri leans close to the flames as she dares to continue reading the newest book from Oxenfurt (Jaskier keeps a supply, anything he can find on lore to flesh out his ballads and Geralt had gotten this look on his face holding it, about it being in the libraries of Kaer Morhen, an older edition) as she asks questions.  
  
 _"Why are nekkers so different to drowners?"  
  
"How does someone become a werewolf? Can they control wolves like the stories?"  
  
"What is a relict, who decided that?"_  
  
Geralt answers all her questions, every one, not without pause Yennefer notes but it might have been years since he read the tomes, and every Witcher has to learn along the way. He quizzes Ciri back in time and there she sits, making her own notes.  
  
 _What are you_ , Yennefer thinks often. _What will you become._  
  
The questions pass, the night grows darker and close about them and Yennefer's skirts fan about her once Ciri shakes out a pouch of knucklebones.  
  
"Well Geralt?" Yennefer asks and he raises a brow, stokes the fire once with a charred branch then settles to join them. He keeps his swords well at hand and Yennefer has her magic ready.  
  
Some nights they sleep with Ciri pressed between them, cloaks and blankets draped over her, a few hours with her head on their shoulders, elbows and knees in their ribs. Other nights she's in her own bedroll and well, they've had a lifetime of learning how to be quiet, though Yennefer would be lying if she didn't enjoy testing just how far she can push Geralt. Success more often than not is smothered laughter with hands or mouths, and she thinks that it's a thing she could get used to.  
  


* * *

  
  
" _What_ is that smell?"  
  
Yennefer just about manages to get the words out as the smell in question encompasses her, hitting at high speed and fortunately – and this is what her life is, if only Tissaia could see for herself that there's a fortunate side to any pungent odour coming towards a person at speed – it doesn't come from Geralt's height but Ciri's, the girl rushing to embrace her. And again, if Tissaia were here to see Yennefer gathering Ciri close, her arms outstretched of their own volition without thought to settle in the bird's nest of her hair, combing out tangles and burrs from a morning of training she can only imagine the words that might be said, the looks that would speak volumes.  
  
But that pales in comparison to Ciri's smile, a particular look of delight Yennefer doesn't care to examine for all the potency it carries, lightning or better yet a djinn erupting out the bottle. It makes Yennefer smile in return, naked and unguarded, Geralt a little ways off with his hair in a similar state of disarray with a pained, no almost rueful smile; he's the reason for the smell because isn't he always, and it takes on flick of her eyes her way and a curl of her lip to let him know he won't enjoy explaining himself.  
  
So she has that, at least, as she allows Ciri to tug her over to the little campsite, Roach whickering with mild interest. Yennefer's known more than one Roach but she's never asked Geralt if he's a knack for picking beasts suited to the life of a Witcher, if they become immune to trauma and burdens as some animals do or if judicious application of Axii is all it takes to produce a suitable Roach in the end.  
  
(She has her doubts about the latter; Geralt's always been fond of his horses and even when Jaskier was the most constant companion chattering enough for an entire banquet hall of soused nobility and all their hangers-on, Geralt still reserved his deepest conversations for his horse.)  
  
"The smell Geralt?" Yennefer prompts again. After all, when she steps through a portal to check in and regrets her first breath then an explanation is owed.  
  
"Oh! Bear pheromones!" Ciri is only too pleased to tell her as she accepts a dagger from Geralt – a new one Yennefer notes, better than he can usually afford between contracts with three mouths to feed and a growing girl to clothe which suggests Jaskier's involvement there; despite everything that's happened between her, Geralt and Jaskier (Yennefer can admit to herself that they all make students at Aretuza look mature and that's on their better days) she's glad to know there are others who'll keep Ciri safe too in the world.   
  
"Yennefer," he greets, an aborted attempt made at brushing dirt from Ciri's shoulders. The ground he's standing in is disturbed, he's sweating just a little and from that Yennefer can fill in the gaps enough that she'll skill the lectures. Training is training, Ciri has to be able to defend herself and Yennefer knows her way about a blade too as a manner of practicality.  
  
It doesn't explain the bear pheromones as she tilts up her chin and smiles at him, adjusting her furs. "Why do you both stink?"  
  
"You aren't about to tell me the exact recipe from a sniff?" Geralt asks, taking a seat. Ciri looks between them with her mouth puckered up, a whole bushel of lemons there, eyebrows pulling double duty until she mutters _gross_ , just soft enough that they both hear it. Geralt laughs and Yennefer half-turns, mouth open in a silent laugh that she'll be asking Ciri to explain later but it's a far cry from that skittish girl in her parlour and who scurried into the bed with nightmares isn't it?  
  
"There are bears about-- _I_ ," Ciri draws up her chin in a way that has to be Calanthe, can't be anything but and certainly isn't anything Yennefer's encouraged _at all_ as Geralt sighs, looking deeply constipated as the girl continues, "wanted to go hunt one. Girls in Cintra—"  
  
"Don't hunt bears at your age," Geralt finishes, arms folded across his chest, brows raised to put an end to an argument they must have had before and more than once from the sound of it. "There's little in hunting a bear anyway."  
  
"But I could learn!" Ciri interrupts and turns to Yennefer, her eyes huge, pleading, and Yennefer purses her lips to smother the smile threatening. "Wouldn't it be helpful to know how to—how to skin a bear properly? Tan leather?"  
  
Geralt sighs and sits, a sort of deflation so few can provoke in him that Yennefer laughs, settling across from him, Ciri still standing with her arms folded, refusing to concede whatever advantage she imagines she has. She's stubborn, Yennefer'll give her that.   
  
"Ciri," he tries, patience stretching thin because Yennefer's heard that voice herself but he's more patience for his child surprise than Yennefer years ago, "we don't stay anywhere long enough for that."  
  
"Oh." Ciri's mouth puckers, bottom lip pulled between her teeth.  
  
"And _that_ is why I'm here: time for other lessons. Furs are better when someone else has handled the bloodier business for you. Come along, if we leave Geralt to whatever alchemy he's up to I'll show you how a sorceress uses a blade. It's maybe time you learned from someone who can't toss you over his shoulder like a sack of turnips."  
  
"You sure you remember Yen?" Geralt's grinning at her from where he's _lounging_ now, the bastard, looking far too smug and assured with himself since he's apparently not only won an argument but found himself with someone in his corner when it comes down to it. (Though Yennefer does agree: bear hunting isn't something she wants Ciri doing, too much risk for far too little reward.) "Maybe a little practice is in order."  
  
Yennefer scoffs; she can't help it, brows raised as Ciri looks on with undisguised delight at them both. "This from a man who has so little grasp on his signs that even a child in Aretuza could sneeze and produce better results?"  
  
"Oh come on Yen, could be fun. You can even pick your prize."  
  
"If you're suggesting—"  
  
"Gross—" Ciri interjects but she's laughing, pink-cheeked, rolling her blade between her palms.  
  
" _You're_ a prize then you've an even more inflated sense of yourself than Jaskier."  
  
Geralt just laughs and Yennefer sighs, hand extended for Ciri's blade. It's not the lesson she had in mind but it works out, doesn't it? Vilgefortz – and that stings, not one of them have heard a damned peep more than spurious rumour of him since Sodden – is one of the only sorcerers to wield a blade that she knows of beside her but long before Yennefer's known the pain of a blade. They can't keep Ciri safe and at a distance. Geralt's not always there. Yennefer's not always there. Ciri's power might not always allow it.  
  
"Watch our footwork Ciri," Geralt instructs as, drills coming back to Yennefer slowly as she discards her coat to move more easily. "You'll have about the same reach as Yennefer."  
  
"Your opponents will be taller, heavier, but you'll," she pirouettes neatly under Geralt's arm, feints with a thrust that could've punctured up under the armpit to where there's often a gap in armour, "have other advantages to press."  
  
Ciri nods, rapt with the same attention she has in Yennefer's lessons, in Geralt's question and answer sessions and the sweat clinging to the back of Yennefer's neck by the end is worth it and a reward all its own along with the ache in her muscles and, oddly, the strain in her cheeks from smiling.  
  


* * *

  
  
Between the two of them they've lived long enough to know much and more of what the world has to offer if from opposite ends; if Yennefer can spirit Ciri off for a night here and there to homes she owns or 'borrows' for respite while Geralt's working a contract in some miserable backwater then it makes sense. After all where else will she train a girl? An inn with thin walls, drunkards, whore, bedbugs, fleas, sometimes even a Jaskier?  
  
Inns have less glass, she'll concede when it comes to messes and bills, summoning the right folk for repairs when it was never something she had to consider prior if she wants to keep her access to the homes she needs and to have her own in any fit state. It's a work in progress and Yennefer—well she remembers herself in Aretuza, an entirely _other_ unfairness. Whatever Ciri has – no Calanthe, no Pavetta, no Mousesack, not a damned soul to ask – she's as good as blind and researching on her own time when Aretuza is putting itself to rights and recovering, scars forming, and Geralt understandably reluctant for more than needed to know of Ciri and what she can do. Tissaia she can't ask, not yet when the rectoress is recovering from Sodden; if Yennefer thinks of Triss who knows Geralt too, who he helped and who helped him, the pair of them saving another princess between them then that doesn't matter. Triss has Foltest to concern herself with after all. So she makes do. She digs deep into her own lessons.  
  
She untangles family trees and bloodlines in a way chroniclers at court would have envied and presses Geralt time and time again about what, exactly, happened at Pavetta's engagement, and thinks herself lucky that she's got the better half of the tree when everything draws to a halt with Duny. Ciri's names help her dredge back through time. Elen of Kaedwen probably a concession to Dagorad but Fiona and Riannon? Fiona, daughter of Riannon, daughter of Lara Dorren? Yennefer lies awake over it when Ciri's beneath her roof. The shadow of it under her tongue when she instructs her in magic: it's not unknown that Cintra was once friend to Aretuza and the Brotherhood but she can't ask, she'd reveal too much, and Calanthe has already sheltered Ciri this far. To say more…  
  
She leaves it where it is. Geralt might suspect sometimes when he looks at her but Yennefer knows what it means to have the blood in your veins dictate your fate. It's enough that whatever _has_ been passed down is potent as it seems to be as Yennefer paces, unnoticed shattered glass cracking underfoot in the aftermath of a recent visit.  
  
Nilfgaard move, black armour that crawls across the world but the world does as it always does. The soil turns. The harvest is reaped. The lambing and calving happen noisily. People come to a sorceress for aid. Jaskier takes up as a professor and Geralt travels with Ciri in tow.  
  
Yennefer joins him, provides decent lodgings for them all and she doesn't imagine that they all sleep better. Even if she doesn't mind 'lowering herself' (Jaskier's phrasing but not far off the mark) to stop at inns.  
  
 _"If I become friends with Jaskier," she tells Geralt once, as if Jaskier isn't at the table too playing a card game with Ciri that's all the rage in certain circles now after a riotous round of applause at the end of his performance, "Your mutated brain will be in a jar for study along with your liver."  
  
Geralt laughs. They laugh again now. Funny how it goes with Ciri passed back and forth between them stealing sips of beer and wine with a wrinkled nose because taverns haven't the suppliers the Cintra palace did (Eist's indulgence though none of them ask, Calanthe sheltered her and all of them are aware of that.)_  
  
Sometimes Tissaia appear when Yennefer is away and she smiles. Yennefer even smiles back. Not all is forgiven but maybe when you lose so many friends and almost die you move past some things, gain perspective. Or that's the suggestions go in letters from Triss and Sabrina because sometimes the words won't come easily but writing when she's spent hours trying to plan lessons for Ciri or waking in cold sweats where the fire melts the flesh from her bones helps.  
  
"Will you meet us in Velen?" Ciri asks when it's time to go through the portal in a new cloak – a drab thing but Yennefer understands practicality and not offering up opportunities to encourage robbers and bandits – sincere her last one got snagged on a briar patch, mended but a sad looking affair fit for tearing into bandages. (Ciri's story and Yennefer could pry the truth out but she held her ground on the lie so credit where it's due and it'll be more fun to get it out of Geralt who can torture himself over it into an ulcer and tell himself otherwise.)   
  
So Velen it is, a portal to Geralt and Ciri with a stop on the way to procure a horse since there's only room for two on Roach and Yennefer prefers to keep up as well as having standards when it comes to her mounts. She finds herself a sleeker beast than any Velen stable has a right to, black and gleaming, a horse who longs to toss his head, foaming and snorting, shivering with the urge to run sideways when drowners rise with obscene grace from the bogs and reeds alongside the roads and under bridges. Her elbows ache with the strain of locking them tight the longer he threatens to throw her and when Geralt looks over them both he doesn't say a damned thing but there's a smile on his face as sure as Ciri's there in front of him in the crook of his sword arm. Not long now and Ciri'll need her own horse given how far the pair of them travel and how fast a girl grows but not yet; this isn't how Yennefer imagined life, riding alongside a Witcher and his child surprise on rutted pathway past crude wood carvings of Melitele, wind riffling through the leaves yet here they are, Ciri chatting and answering the questions they pose as lessons.  
  
"What brought you to Velen anyway?" Yennefer asks when she checks her horse – Lambert is the name she's leaning towards for the way he hurtles towards a broken leg with reckless abandon only to still nose at her for treats as if he's not been a bastard the entire day – for the umpteenth time since they've ridden out.   
  
"Nekkers. Unusual number of nests about." Geralt clicks his tongue at Roach, scanning the surroundings. "More than ten. So the tales and notices said. Ciri?"  
  
"Nekkers attack in groups and use surprise, trying to cut off your chance of escape," Ciri begins, turning to glance at Yennefer who nods for her to continue. "They're disorganised, not courageous so an individual hesitates before they overcome their fear; use this moment of hesitation to kill the brave ones then finish off the remaining individuals."  
  
"Best ways to deal with nekkers?" Geralt prompts, sounding proud and who can blame him, Ciri keeps it all in her head better than most scholars can.  
  
"Bombs for large groups such as Northern Wind or Dancing Star—"  
  
"Do you have the ingredients for those?" Yennefer asks, a question as much for Ciri as Yennefer because alchemy is a talent of a sorceress as much as it is a Witcher though less toxic for her than for him, something they both teach Ciri who has her own kit stashed in her pack.   
  
"Should do, might need to stock up once the rumours are confirmed. We'll check. Ciri?"  
  
Ciri pauses, chewing her lip until Geralt draws a symbol in the air with one hand and her mouth drops into an 'o' of recognition. "Aard is a useful sign to allow a Witcher to knock back one or a group, buying time to deal with them without being overwhelmed."  
  
"Well done. Vesemir and Eskel would be proud and you continue to put Lambert to shame."  
  
"You always say it's not difficult when it's Lambert."  
  
"Doesn't mean you can't be proud of it."  
  
Something screams ahead of them, a water hag from the way Yennefer's horse tosses his head and Roach snorts, stamping her feet; Geralt swings himself down, tossing the reins to Ciri and looking to Yennefer as he unsheathes his blades.  
  
"I need to deal with that. I'll catch you both up at the inn."  
  


* * *

  
  
There are nekkers; some of the villagers seek out the aid of a sorceress so once Ciri is safely in their rooms, Yennefer departs and returns richer (though not by much, this part of Velen isn't prosperous as other places in recent memory) to Ciri poking through her alchemy supplies where she's stretched out on the bed, legs swinging.  
  
"Got everything you need?"  
  
"More drowner brains, I think some of these are past their best. Maybe." Ciri holds out a small jar – drowner brains are barely a handful, atrophied after their deaths, especially once they've dried even if Geralt keeps them wet enough they don't dry out entirely – and Yennefer's not an expert but she wrinkles her nose, Ciri sighing in a put-upon way as if their condition is a great hardship. "Basic bits and pieces. It's been a while since we stopped anywhere long enough to buy anything—"  
  
Whatever else Ciri is going to say is interrupted by Geralt returning, stinking of mud, brackish water, reeds and gore spattered all the way up his legs to the thighs, across his chest and arms.  
  
"Boards are wrong. There's nekkers but not nests. Need to do some research."  
  
"You stink," Ciri and Yennefer say at once, Geralt sighing heavily in response, raising a hand to rub his face before thinking better of it; his hand is as filthy as the rest of him.  
  
"Right, bath first, then res—"  
  
"You need things, did you bring anything back?" Ciri interrupts as Geralt's halfway to the door.  
  
"Bath. Alchemy. Research." He pauses, a hand on the door, half-turned towards the both of them with a tired tight smile. "Anything else?"  
  
"Dinner?" Ciri asks in her smallest, no-I'm-not-twisting-your-arm voice. Yennefer smiles and rises to her feet.  
  
"I'll hurry him along," she says, by which she means she _also_ wants a bath and the two of them can hurry hot water along faster which means food will almost certainly be eating while hot rather than languishing or Ciri having picked the plates or bowls clean of the choice cuts because they aren't around to say otherwise and _I'm a growing girl, what did you expect?_  
  
(It's a sound argument but not one an empty stomach has any tolerance or appreciation for.)  
  
Ciri rummaging through Geralt's belongings doesn't _quite_ drown out her mutterings.  
  


* * *

  
  
Wolf carcasses litter the ground by the time Yennefer catches her breath, the stink of burning rancid fur caught in her nose – maybe this is what her life will be, something balancing itself out in the end, to have that stench there, a reminder of Sodden if only for a moment—  
  
And then it passes. Her head clears. A sword slides into a hilt feet from her.  
  
"Geralt. You always pick such charming places."  
  
"Yen," he smiles. Or his sort of smile, blooded from the arc of his sword as Ciri appears from her hiding spot and doesn't that have the smile sliding right off. "I told you to stay put."  
  
"There were wolves coming, you taught me how to fight wolves."  
  
Geralt makes another face and in a way, Yennefer understands – the bear debate is fresh in all their minds after all, especially after a trapper just happened to be in the tavern, more than willing to talk the price of furs – but it's a valid point: wolves are common enough that they'll take the unwary, both they and the dogs ready to scavenge the leavings from battle. It won't be long now until that's the reality for them all. Ciri's screaming, tempered as it is, honed with her speed with a blade, certainly helps to drive off enough that they can both be proud of their teaching at this point even if it's still far too soon for her to be tested, months barely, neither of their long years of tutelage to hone them to what they are today.  
  
But someone has to start somewhere. She's sure she's killed things with Geralt that've fallen under a banner of _don't tell Yennefer_ or anyone who might be likely to give Geralt the lecture he'd deserve for bringing Ciri into those situations. Not that he's much choice but a girl is a girl and it's hard to ignore that first feral instinct, teeth bared in a snarl when it races up the throat.  
  
"Werewolves?" Ciri asks after she's coughed away the stink, sinking to her knees to begin with the salvage efforts as Yennefer takes a deep steadying breath, readying herself just in case something appears.  
  
"Werewolves don't attack during the day; they're night creatures. Besides," there's a decidedly _wet_ sound Yennefer isn't in the mood to confirm today, some lesson she's not inclined towards, "contrary tales? Werewolves are solitary. Things about werewolves having wolves to do their bidding—"  
  
"Oh," Ciri sounds disappointed though without turning to look at her, Yennefer can't be entirely sure but she's known her long enough to judge since it's the same tone she gets whenever Yennefer strips back magic to something less wondrous when she has to. It makes her wonder what Mousesack filled her head with but she won't take that from her even if it's a druid versus a sorceress. "I read in some books…it doesn't matter…"  
  
"Maybe in some places," Geralt amends gently. "Careful with the liver, those'll fetch a good price with the alchemist here. You need new boots."  
  
"You do too, I don't know how many times you can patch or bind a pair together with strips before they stop being boots. No one respects a man with poor shoes."   
  
"She's right Geralt."  
  
"No one respects a Witcher," Geralt says quietly and that dampens the mood considerably though Yennefer can't help rolling her eyes at him; no one respects a sorceress either and Geralt doesn't have to go cleaning up the messes she's had to when she's been stuck in the court of this monarch or that. No, he gets to charge in and slink out, maybe with a stain against his name and reputation but no expectation or responsibility.  
  
Until now.  
  
Close to a century of doing as he pleases, accountable only to himself and the ways of Witchers, having to change that so suddenly must be a rude shock to the system that Yennefer is enjoying witnessing if only because she doesn't have anyone personally around to witness how it is for her. Geralt might know her better than most, but not so well her calls her out on everything the way a sorceress would.   
  
They've the livers gathered in short order, wrapped with care and packed away and Yennefer finds she can't look suddenly at Ciri's hands, so small and with blood beneath the nails and in every crevice, hands that pore over Geralt and Yennefer's books, that snatch up whatever food Yennefer provides her with, that cheat at knucklebones at every given opportunity because it's what her grandfather taught her to do so she'd win and it's true who doesn't win when they cheat, hands that learn magic best as Yennefer can teach her in snatched moments, hands that have begun to develop blade calluses already. No longer soft and clean. Ciri's long since used to being streaked in gore up to the elbows; neither of them know how this ends for her, what they're protecting her so long for, preparing her for beyond survival in the world as it struggles with the face of itself, but she won't be the same.  
  
Geralt might forget that more easily, they changed him on a deeper part of himself than Yennefer from how he talks to her in the dark of night now, his childhood such as it was coming back to him more easily with Ciri around but Yennefer remembers. Yennefer didn't have happiness or softness, but she had something. She chose to sit there in the shackles and give up a part of herself as an adult woman.  
  
Ciri smiles up at her, waving Yennefer over – something about following tracks, Geralt's trying to scent where the wolves have come from – and a pain lances up in her the way it does sometimes. But she follows, a glance about to make sure nothing's lurking behind and tracking them. The forest is still, the wind picks up to come whispering through the branches that sway and creak overhead, to disturb tiny birds that flit away, the colour of bark and petals as they tweet their discontent. Yennefer strides forward on the hunt to keep Ciri securely between herself and Geralt.  
  


* * *

  
  
"It's a Leshen." Geralt slams the inn door shut with more force than necessary; it's pleasant for an inn, reminiscent of where Borch Three Jackdaws brought her and Geralt together again before _that_ disaster and Ciri's on him in an instant from where she's been counting out coin from selling wolf livers not needed for his own uses. Something about Ciri herself driving a hard bargain and more than a few people having soft spots for a girl with her pockets full of parts and pieces, the tales she allows them to fill in themselves. Yennefer's composing a letter to Sabrina – where is Vilgefortz, have you heard more about Fringilla – and glad of the interruption.   
  
"A Leshen?" Ciri asks and Yennefer's not relieved she's the one who asked but monsters of Geralt's variety aren't what she deals with, only when she's needed or wanted something and those days aren't at the forefront of her mind unless their paths cross now. Velen has rapidly spiralled into far more than she bargained for since the invitation was extended.   
  
Geralt lands on the bed that groans ominously beneath him; it might have been a fine inn once before the damp got to it but nowhere stays pristine long when you've travellers in and out who'll chance their luck skipping out on paying if they think they might possibly get away with it. But they've baths that you might fit two in if you don't mind limbs tangled together and a damned fine cook so there's that.   
  
He drags a hand down his face, looking as if he wants to sink through the bed, the floor, and all the way down. "They're rare; I've not read about them in a long time. Never even seen one in the flesh."  
  
"Mousesack read to me about them." That gets both of them to look over at Ciri who shrugs her shoulders. "They've got Leshen on Skellige, it's where he was from…did he ever—"  
  
"We never met enough times to talk about them." Geralt sounds apologetic in his way, no story to share for someone he knew and shared with Ciri who nods her head sharply.  
  
Yennefer takes a breath, setting down her unfinished letter (all her letters are tinged with hurt, everyone remembering more and more they've lost) since _she's_ never heard of a Leshen that she can recall and it's not often that anyone Ciri's age ever gets to be the learned one in the room. "Tell us about what you were taught of Leshen then Ciri, if Geralt can't remember then we'll never pay for our…wonderful accommodations will we?"  
  
"Most of them were stories about how if I we were in Skellige, not Cintra, a Leshen might steal away a misbehaving girl but that was usually if I was testing his patience to the limit." Ciri smiles and Geralt does too – they both knew him, cared for him, and Yennefer smiles because no longer does speaking of him bring either of them grief. "He said they locked girls in towers once too—"  
  
"Stregobor," Yennefer and Geralt say in sync, both of their voices flat until there's a pause and they laugh.  
  
"Who's Stregobor?" Ciri asks, perturbed looking more to Yennefer than Geralt for an answer.  
  
"An old sorcerer you'll count yourself lucky never to meet." Yennefer shakes her head and—if he ever knew about _Ciri_ it doesn't even warrant thinking about. "Tell me about Leshen, you'll remember better than Geralt."  
  
Geralt snorts but doesn't disagree so she's probably not far off the mark.  
  
"Humans have always had tales about forest creatures from the allure of the wild wood," Ciri begins, her eyes falling closed for a second, her voice slowing; perhaps she's elsewhere, a younger, smaller, sheltered Ciri safe in an unsacked Cintra surrounded by all who loved her. "And it was a font of tales of beasts and more, ferocious and benign, friendly and hostile. Then humans as they always do settled deeper and deeper in forests and forgot to hold respect for them in their hearts; there was wood to gather, houses of stone to build, and the plague that was humanity grew, and the wrath of the forest creatures grew in turn.  
  
"All forests have a heart, and in that heart there lies a secret. In a place—" Ciri stops, chewing her lip, breathing through her nose and huffing with frustration with a quiet mutter under her breath. "In a place dark and primeval in nature for where else could such a thing be birthed, there is a guardian terrifying and mighty: the Leshen."  
  
"Immune to human steel," Geralt murmurs, softly as if equal parts spellbound and loathe to interrupt.  
  
Ciri nods, blinking herself free of her memories to smile. "Did you—"  
  
"I remember some of it. Mousesack told it better than any of the books ever did. Maybe if it was written that way we'd keep everything fresh in our heads."  
  
"Skellige is still a wild place, is it not Ciri?" Yennefer asks since they've none from Aretuza or Brotherhood there, not when Skellige has a wealth of druids.   
  
"That's what Mousesack and my grandfather said. And whoever came to visit."  
  
Geralt snorts and well, he said he was at Pavetta's engagement where many from Skellige were said to have voyaged in search of her hand, he'll no doubt have met Ciri's family as well but long ago, deep in their cups. A different sort of honesty.   
  
"So," Ciri heads over to the bed and bounces down next to Geralt who groans. A long few days of nekkers and wolves and wild goose chases of a notice. "Why are you so sure it's a Leshen?"  
  
"I saw it. Finally. Went back to have another look after you and Yennefer left and something…something bothered me. The nekkers? The wolves? Werewolves don't summon wolves. But something old could do that. Summon nekkers to protect it – who were attacked by the nekkers?"  
  
All of them are quiet until Ciri speaks. "Woodcutters. Stone masons. Trappers. People who hurt the forest. From the thinking of the forest."  
  
"What about the wolves?"  
  
"Leshen can command other creatures of the forest, the wolves might have seemed just."  
  
"The alchemist said that she was glad I wasn't trying to sell her teeth or bones," Ciri replies and Yennefer nods.  
  
"How many wolf pelts have you seen stretched over the racks? One of the dwarves who asked me for a draught said they aren't simple trappers or hunters – they want to drive the wolves out entirely, hunt them all down and rid this village of them."  
  
"And now I have a Leshen to kill. It won't stop now. They've angered it and all this? It only gets worse."  
  
"It's still not right." Ciri mutters, miserable, sullen, flopping back so she's lying alongside Geralt who stretches an arm out to ruffle her hair.   
  
"No, it's not, but people on the roads will die to nekkers and wolves too. So," he pushes himself up and for a moment Yennefer can see every year in his face. "Don't suppose you can help me make a dimeritium bomb Yen?"  
  


* * *

  
  
_"A Leshen can control plants and animals around it."_ Yennefer recalls Geralt's words as the three of them – Ciri will not be deterred, armed with weapons of her own and as secure as they can make her as they venture deeper into the woods where the attacks have been worst. _"They can disappear entirely from sight."_  
  
That they've need a dimeritium bomb that made Yennefer uneasy to craft – portals to find ingredients since she isn't a _walking laboratory Geralt_ \- and relict oil to coat all their blades doesn't leave her more prepared. If they throw the bomb – she had enough for one because the ingredients aren't things she has much of because why would she use saltpetre or optima mater, honestly she's surprised she didn't have to purchase them or head to Aretuza – and the wind changes or the thing moves than that's _her_ magic nullified. Tissaia experienced that. Tissaia was shaken to her core to have it done to her. The relict oil wasn't much more pleasant even if it was easier to mash mistletoe into melted dog tallow, a stink that sours the stomach but she doesn't complain. Not if it ends the Leshen. Not if it keeps them safe.   
  
And fire. Fire against wood is always a compelling argument and Yennefer has that in spades to go with Geralt's signs.   
  
Still, the stories, the research, the preparation, none of it prepares her for the first glimpse of the Leshen as it slips through the shadows of trees that might have stood since the time of the elves, tall and proud, silvery wood that anyone would want to cut for lumber. Yennefer might not have much appreciation for it, might love her fine things, her furnishings, all her comfortable homes but she can stand here and know somewhere in her that this is a senseless waste of an ancient place. The Leshen though—the Leshen is a nightmare of ancient folk as the tales promised; bone and branch and she can't tell from this distance if it wears flesh or leather or cloth to bind it almost as an ancient druid or priest. The head of a stag crowned with a grand spread of antlers to make a macabre headdress, shoulder made all the wider for branches flanked and decorated by skulls and bones; if those are trophies or offerings from those who gave thought to such a being Yennefer doesn't know or want to know as it moves, as the wind _sighs_ through the hollow wound of the chest, through absurdly long arms and legs that creak as the forest at night.  
  
Geralt breathes, readies his silver sword – silver for monsters, silver because the Leshen is immune to the steel of men – and he spares a glance to Ciri who waits with the bomb because she's at a distance, ready to flank, ready to move, ready to _run_ hard and fast or to scream and howl until nothing is left and all ears are bleeding. Yennefer touches the pommel of her own blade, steel since she's little use for silver, but wolves came once and might come again, and any blade is better than none if it comes down to it. Geralt looks to her, nods, and heads off in the direction of the Leshen. Overhead the branches are thick with crows, beady black eyes watching over them, more and more alighting with the clacking of sharp beaks, wings flapping until they settle and fall silent. Despite the efforts of hunters and their own battle mere days before, wolves howl far closer than Yennefer is comfortable with.   
  
Then, all at once, the birds take flight, a furious swarm of beating black wings as a terrible cacophony erupted out of them, drowning out the howling of the wolves. Yennefer's hands are up at her ears before she can think of anything else, unable to do a damned thing as the sound pierces deep through her, razor sharp beaks and claws scraping at her, wings beating at her until a scream cuts through, further off, faint amidst the din but honed. Her bones vibrate with it and her knees lock to keep them from buckling, sword caught under her boot to keep from it becoming hopefully lost though very much forgotten for the moment as the bodies continue to batter her but with less intent than before; risking opening an eye she watches crows falling from the sky, lifeless and leaden, bodies limp, and she _knows_ , drawing a portal to send the rest elsewhere with one hand. They slam into a thundering torrent of a waterfall and someone will remark on it, might call it a portent depending on their mind but they're dead or gone or both and Yennefer can breathe and pick up her sword. Barely catching her breath, she draws the sign for quen in Ciri's direction – it's shorthand, Ciri's more than Geralt's when words can't be used – or the direction of the screaming. A terrible noise isn't so far from them, a great many trees being felled and that has to be the sound of a Leshen moving interspersed with what she knows so well as fire and flame, deep guttural roars echoing through the trees, closer to her.  
  
Closer to Ciri.  
  
"Stay put." She takes a breath and catches Ciri's nod from her hiding spot. "Stay _safe_." It's all she can say as sword in hand she draws another portal to take her away and to where she's needed, emerging to plunge a blade deep into the Leshen as it swings a gnarled arm thick with moss and lichen at Geralt who rolls out of the way, his shield sign dissipating with a flash of light beneath the onslaught.  
  
Her blade does little even with the relict oil but the Leshen roars again, attention drawn from the Witcher and to her, wheeling faster than any beast of such proportions has any right to move but isn't that so often the way of things? Yennefer has little time to ponder over it, not when now is the time to bare her teeth, yelling as she blasts it with flames at the same time as Geralt rises up and does the same from behind, a stench worse than simply charred wood rising to choke them. And then the ground shifts beneath them, knotted roots snagging at their feet until Geralt grabs her arm and yanks her back to whatever counts for safety, the Leshen gone in the blink of an eye, only something like black smoke but thicker remaining where it was. Geralt heaves for breath, eyes wilder than she's seen them in a long time, wiping blood from a split lip looking Yennefer over – he's seen her in a far worse state by now, she's seen him from disastrous hunts with wounds turned to scars but never in the midst of one – as he looks around then puts them back to back.  
  
"Ciri?" He asks, voice low and rough from shouting. Maybe being throttled, she's not had a good look but a Leshen has long slender fingers. If they can be called that. She's uncomfortable at giving such a thing anything too many markers that belong to a person when it so obviously isn't but it can't be denied.  
  
"Safe. Dealt with the crows." Even here, even now, Yennefer can't disguise her pride.  
  
"Good," and it seems Geralt can't either, she knows he's smiling behind her. "Careful, it might—"  
  
Flanked by wolves, the Leshen returns as suddenly as it disappeared and there's nothing more Geralt can say. Instead there's the wolves circling them with hackles drawn, slavering lips drawn back over their teeth as they lunge, both Geralt and Yennefer swinging blades, saving spells and signs for the Leshen when it gets close enough for them to press their advantage. A burst of heat close to Yennefer's back from Igni directed at the Leshen provokes a howl until a voice shouts for both of them to move, a familiar figure that shouldn't be anywhere near them running forward.  
  
"Ciri!" Yennefer barks – a wolf flies off to the side, out of the way and limp – alarmed and with nothing else left to her voice after all this effort. "Go back, you shouldn't—"  
  
"I have it, both of you _move_!"  
  
The air shakes, shimmers, bends almost to Ciri's very will it seems and Geralt's almost grabbed by the Leshen's roots that burst forward and reach for him as he rolls out of the way and Yennefer is moving, fire in her hands and her bones are molten as she goes, Geralt in her wake—  
  
Neither of them see the bomb being thrown through the air but the howls of anguish from the Leshen when it shatters against the bark and yellowed skull can only come from that. Rooted to the spot, the way the arms splay out, fingers stretched until they seem to splinter off entirely is enough to make up for the rictus that should come from dimeritium exploding all about it. Yennefer has Tissaia telling her about it when they recovered in Aretuza, unable to move, cut off from everything, barely able to breathe but now when Geralt charges the thing with sword and sign Yennefer's with him, screaming as she did in Sodden, flames swirling enough that if she lacked the control the whole forest would be ablaze. The world narrows. Nothing else exists but for the Leshen cracking, crumbling, collapsing inward on itself beneath the combined onslaught until it collapses with one final thrust of a silver blade down through the skull beneath the eyes, Yennefer sinking to her knees, hands deep in the grass, soft and cool beneath her palms.  
  
"Yennefer?" Ciri asks, a hand on her shoulder, terribly familiar. Yennefer smiles, reaching up to pat clumsily at her cheek to where Geralt's lying on his back, chest rising and falling. "Geralt?"  
  
He waves a hand then drops it back to his chest with a groan and Yennefer laughs.  
  


* * *

  
  
"And what is it, exactly?"  
  
Her horse sold off and the coin portioned out in Ciri's favour because a girl should have her own coin to spend and she's not quite at the stage of being able to earn it herself but she should be reliant on Geralt for _everything_ , not in Yennefer's opinion, and they're ready to part ways. Geralt and Ciri deeper into Velen off on some lighter contracts (the Leshen paid well, he won't be hurting for coin though two people, a horse, all that they need? It won't last long) and staying as far from Nilfgaardian encroachment as possible. Yennefer hasn't decided herself but it can't hurt to stop by Tissaia again, avail herself of Aretuza's abundant resources.  
  
But not before she finds out what Geralt's handed over to her as Ciri spends far long than anyone has ever spent adjusting straps and buckles to give her cover and a view. Her looks over to them aren't anything close to furtive and Yennefer knows she's been laughing about it, not from the girl's flushed cheeks, but from how Geralt is fighting the urge to turn and scold her with a look, a muscle in his cheek jumping.  
  
"It's Leshen resin," he explains after another moment of not saying anything as he holds out the cloth wrapped bundle to her. "Either you can use it or sell it—"  
  
"Is this your way of saying thank you?"  
  
"If you don't—"  
  
"I never said that; what is it used for?"  
  
"I only know how a Witcher would use it but if anyone else can find another way…" Geralt smiles despite himself and she rises on her toes to pull him down by the collar, nipping at his bottom lip with the resin caught up in her fist between them. "Take care of her. Take care of yourself."  
  
"And you Yen. Don't get into any trouble."  
  
"Me?" She pretends to be insulted, stepping back to open her arms for Ciri to run into, stroking through her hair with her free hand, reluctant to leave but knowing she must because she leaves, she always leaves, this is how it is. "Mind your lessons and keep him in line."  
  
"I promise," Ciri tells with her solemnity that cracks into a brilliant smile a moment later. "I'll miss you."  
  
"I'll miss you too but it won't be long 'til we find each other again."  
  
She draws the portal through the air, casts one last glance over her shoulder to smile at them and steps through.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the following:
> 
> You hold love in your hand, a red seed you had forgotten you were holding.
> 
> \--Margaret Atwood, from Eurydice
> 
> One part about Yennefer and horseriding comes from a _buckwild_ couple of quotes A Lady of Quality by Francis Hodgson Burnett that were, as stated, buckwild, and also ludicrously horny for someone writing about riding a horse.


End file.
